Hey, our studio project got in the newspaper!!!

I guess that one would expect it if a guest was a reporter for the Philadelphia inquirer, but here you go.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20080328_Phila__visitors_compare_SEPTA_to_Toronto_transit.html

Now that I'm famous (indirectly and actually not at all) the job offers should be flooding in.

At long last I have put together a selection of photos from the recent trip to London and Toronto for my Studio Class. The ostensible reason for travelling was to examine these two cities and their transportation systems and take back ideas for use in the Philadelphia region. Overall, we got a lot of ideas but they were mostly of the, "London is soooo much better than Philly, there's no way we can do anything like that here," variety. London IS waay better than Philly, and I will go so far to say that it is the BEST city that I've ever been to. I say best in the all inclusive sense; it has history but is vibrant with a modern urbanity that is refreshing and interesting. The city is well run and is trying to get better still. They place a great emphasis on global warming and in fact are truly taking the lead on that front. Things are generally clean and they've just pledged 500 million pounds for bicycle and pedestrian improvements by the Olympics in 2012. Stupendous stuff.
After London, Toronto could only play second fiddle. They are much more comparable to Philly, but the city felt like a wierd mishmash of Minneapolis and New York in collision. We did get an opportunity to hobnob with some of the best and brightest from Toronto and Philly at the "Sips and Nibbles" event, which was a good chance for me to practice my "hire me" face.

More pictures are available at my Picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/London

Sheeeit, three weeks of non-stop school work behind me, now I just gotta get through another two easy days and I'm off to London!! Our regional transportation studio presented the midterm report on monday, and as I was one of the 4 suckers who presented, I ended up wearing a suit for the first time in 3 years or so. I cannot honestly remember the last time I put my Goodwill suit on, but I looked SHARP! I gotta remember that when I go looking for jobs in the near future.

So yeah, on Thursday we head out to London some time in the evening and have a couple of free days before we meet with some grand high muckety-mucks at the London Transit Agency, London 2012 and some other place that I'm forgetting. Next Wednesday we then jet back to Toronto for a meeting with some important folks on this side of the pond. It's going to be pretty sweet, and in a nerdy way I'm hoping to get to see all of the city planning wonders that these places have to offer. We're going to ride the tube, see the sights and spend alarming amounts of money. Goddamn weak dollar!

What the hell is the "wintry mix"? Back where I come from, the Midwest, people have actual names for the kinds of precipitation that occur in winter. No, we're not quite as eloquent as the Inuit with their 50 odd words for snow, but we at least know the difference between things like sleet, freezing rain, hail, snow and ice. Not out here in the wild wild East. Here, when anything appears to be falling from the sky that is not immediately perceived to be rain, it is assumed to be the horrific wintry mix that gets Philadelphia's collective undies in a bundle. It just reeks of wussiness to me.

It's a good thing that I screwed up my knee three weeks ago, or I'd be going crazy!

As those who know me already realize, being injured normally makes me into quite the whiny bitch when I can't do what I want to do. Not this time!! This time I have changed my tune, and I'm just taking it easy. Actually, my lack of preoccupation with what I'm not doing stems from the preposterous amount of school stuff that I've got going on. I can't imagine being any more busy, even with only 3 days of class per week. My studio class is really the killer; 6 hours twice a week in a dungeon-like room in the basement of Furness, really eats into one's motivation to do other things. That is coupled with three other classes for the fullest load I've taken yet. Yay. I'm getting my money's worth, that's for sure. At this point though, I feel kind of relieved to be overworked as it takes my mind off all of the things that I'm not doing.

In other news, we're hosting a dumpling party this weekend, it should be good times and good eats for everyone. I'm even going to bust out the tako-yaki maker for its thrilling debut in our house. Everyone can enjoy tasty fried octopus dumplings!!

In a fit of inventiveness, I decided that we should make hand-pulled noodles for dinner last week. Despite knowledge to the contrary, i thought, "How hard can this really be?" Well, after abotu an hour and a half of pulling and kneading and resting and doing it all over again we came up with some tasty but not quite as thin as they should be hand pulled noodles, a la Aaron. My favorite style!!

I recommend the experience to anyone, but honestly, it's a lot easier to buy the ones from the store, plus they taste almost the same.

Below is the final result, hand pulled noodles in a peanut sauce, delicious!

Check out my pictures of the Hamptons, where Jennifer and I passed a fabulous newyears. Our friend Marie happens to be a real blue blood (though she fell on the hippie side of the tree) and her family owns a beach house in Easthampton on Long Island. Though her parents' house is a 5 bedroom, 3 fireplace job with a pool and room for a pony, it's rather modest by the standards of the area. Go figure. A house a kilometer up the beach had it's own observatory with the rotating dome and 15 inch telescope and everything. Now that's a a frickin' beach house.

Over the course of the holiday we broiled some salmon, flew kites and shucked our own oysters. It was truly a New Years to remember.

My photos are found at
http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/TheHamptons
Another good set is at Matt Lyons page
http://picasaweb.google.com/matthewtlyons/Hamptonians?authkey=fIFHufQF8ns

Holidays beat work days, any day

Holidays are indeed better than work days, scientists have now proven it! The study was published recently in the International Journal of Studies with Sample Size One. In this study, a scientist took a sample of one person, himself, and found that work days are unequivocally less awesome than those days in which work was either optional or unnecessary such as holidays.

Ok, I admit, the journal is this blog, and the scientist is me, but dammit, I'm right here!

I'm in the process of posting some pictures of our recent escapades in the Midwest and East, but given the prolific nature of my photography, it's taking a while. Jennifer assures me that I take far too many bad pictures, but for me that was the whole point of getting a digital camera, I can take as many junk pictures as I want and just cull the herd later.

Back to the HOMELAND

I have finished my semester of school. And it is good. We head home this evening to lovely and frosty Ames, Iowa. I mentioned that I was from Iowa this morning to a co-worker at my internship, to which she responded, "Are there a lot of strip malls? That's what I think of when I think Iowa. I mean, who the hell is from Iowa."

 

I love the East Coast.

Instead of doing my take home test for my Real Estate Finance class, the class that has repeatedly kicked my ass, I have decided to post some pictures of my increasingly beautiful road bike. Over thanksgiving I wasted about 20 odd hours sanding, prepping cutting stencils and applying decals to my 2007 Cannondale CAAD9. I think it looks pretty damn sharp, and with the upcoming addition of pink brake hoods and saddle, I think that it will soon be complete!!

I get a lot of comments on it while riding, mostly ones like, "You fighting breast cancer?" To which I answer, "Hell Yes!" I love breasts, and therefore hate breast cancer, so yeah, this for all of that, but more importantly, it makes me look cool.

Tim’s parents are heroes

And well heeled ones at that. It does my heart good to see land preserved. Though the twin cities is one of the few places in the country with an actual metropolitan government, it's also the third most sprawled metro. Land gobbled up like so much popcorn.

 

http://www.startribune.com/south/story/1538517.html

Hemmingway had it right.

Since writing papers is such a god-awful task these days, I've decided to follow the Earnest Hemmingway School of writing. Namely, drink scotch and sit in an overheated room and sweat at a keyboard. Sure, he was on Key West and busy fishing and drinking and leering at local dames, but I've got he Internet, what more do I need for the same sorts of distractions? Apparently Papa Hemmingway's favorite drink was a Teacher's Scotch and Soda, and so just now I had myself a glass of Glensalen Pure Malt Scotch Whiskey and some seltzer. Not exactly the same but guess what, I can write like CRAZY!!!

I think that the slight buzz helps me ignore the boring ignominy of what I'm writing (Form-based zoning codes in Peoria Illinois anyone?) and just spit out the verbiage. Not only that, but I feel smarter and sexier! It's like beer goggles in reverse!!

While digging through a box of crap on my bedside table, I found this old business card from the earlier days of my dad's career as a preeminent bicycle nerd. This card dates from probably the mid 70s when the bike shop was at the corner of Fifth and Kellogg in Ames. This location predates all of my memory at the bike shop, I can still remember the second spot, at Fifth and Main street, which must be some 24 or so years ago ( I have an amazing memory for bikes).




The second location, at Main and Kellogg had the creepiest basement with its requisite dank spaces and centipedes, but the coolest second story, full of bike parts and a pinball machine and a giant stuffed soldier doll, not to mention the samurai sword that Michael had in his office. There was also my dad's co-worker Charles, who would make elephant noises and lend me Spiderman comics. It was good times.

We are on our way to eco-responsibility. As odd as it is for me to think of buying worms, Jennifer ordered a compost culture full of red wrigglers this past week from some hippie outlet in Michigan. After a short trip to the hardware store and a long bout with the hand drill and box knife, we have our very own indoor urban composter. The worms eat all manner of things, from newspaper and cardboard to fruits and veggies. We finished their new home last night and Jennifer has it stashed in the basement, awaiting our detritus.

Bloggin’ aint easy…except when you’re procrastinating

I am currently being 'bent over a barstool' by classes, as they say in the parlance of our times. I have most recently enjoyed a weekend of debauchery, if in fact, Real Estate Finance is debauchery. I will likely post more interesting stuff once I've got some free time, probably around next May or June.

The following are what's up with me:

• I now have a new mouse for the computer. It is called the Quill Mouse and it is absolutely amazing. My wrist went from being ridiculously sore to just somewhat uncomfortable after my most recent 10 hour computer session. I heartily recommend it to anyone with wrist problems.
  
• I recently drank beers at a strip club for the first time. It was modestly traumatic, but I got over it. The best part about the place was that they had a Wall of Fame; girls from 1962 until the present were memorialized on the walls.
  
• I am now the official unofficial vice president of my bicycle club. The office is totally amazing, and I can't wait to go on Air Force 19 (which is another name for my red Raleigh with the brooks saddle)
  
• I have made extensive use of 911. I've had enough of the goddam drug dealers on my street, I'm calling the cops until they get fed up enough to do something.
  
• Jennifer and I could likely double our house price if we sold today, according to Jim down the street who has made his business the gentrification (or more humorously Jim-trification) of the neighborhood. I say bring on the rich folks.

Crunching the numbers, that's me. I knew before I signed up that I wouldn't like the Real Estate Finance class, and by god, I was right. While I find it interesting to learn a bit more about how businesses make the decisions that really shape the built environment in this city, (who are we kidding, city planners don't build cities, MONEY does) I am not exactly smitten with the whole world of MS Excel that I have found myself thrust into. I've been smacking my head against the concepts of asset valuation, discounted cash flows and expense reimbursements all weekend, and I am still foundering in the quagmire that is my first assignment.

I'm taking some comfort at least in the adage, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." which I am currently interpreting to mean that I don't actually have to ace this class to still get a job.

When English is not a first language, creative license takes on a whole new dimension. Check out the picture from my friend Stacey, who is currently working on a planning project near Seoul in Korea.

I rode my bike so hard that my ass fell off.

At least, that's what it felt like yesterday after I finished my 40K Time Trial near Harrisburg. In contrast with previous races, a lot of things went right: I got there on time, got ready on time and didn't even miss my start. The course totally suited me, it was a series of rolling hills that eventually trended upward over the course of 20K and then returned along the same route, giving me the psychological boost to fly down at what seemed like an amazing pace on my way back in . I finished the course in 57:30, which works out to something like 26 miles per hour for nearly an hour. That was pretty fast, though had I had the experience of doing one beforehand, I would likely have gone a little faster. The winner's time was 56:30, and according to my handy online pace calculator, I would have had to go only .5 miles per hour faster over the course to make up the difference. Jennifer continues to make fun of my newfound obsession with aerodynamics, however, despite the OBVIOUS advantages in both speed and geekiness.

Thank god for forest first aid. I am happily free of poison ivy despite smashing into it with my face. Amazing.

In other news, school is just around the corner and that means that I'm going to be up to my neck in coursework in the next few weeks. While I generally like the stimulation and the more relaxed schedule of class as opposed to work, I'm usually not crazy about the homework. One thing that can be said for the life of the working stiff, is that when you're done with work, you can go home and do something entirely different, no need to stress about upcoming papers and tests. I'll just have to keep the end goal in mind during classes.

I've got my fingers crossed. While mountain biking today at the Belmont Plateau area of Fairmount Park here in Philly, I somehow managed to smash my face into a branch hanging down from a tree above the trail. While this is usually a painful but tolerable part of mountain biking on the tight single track of the park, this particular branch gave me pause. Just after I was thwapped on the right side of my forehead, something about the hairyness and shape of the offending shrub gave me pause. Yes folks, it was indeed a large-ish branch of poison ivy that I had splintered with my noggin. Uttering some choice words, I headed back home at top speed, stopping only long enough to smear some touch-me-not stem juice on my face and spray myself down with water.

We will just have to wait and see if my face turns into a pussing boil or not. I'll post pictures if it's really nasty.